Page 24 of Death Card

I’m doing the best I can for the situation at hand, so I respondwith a murmured “Ça va” and clasp both hands in my lap so no one can see me pick at my nail polish.

Gramps clears his throat. “Let’s continue,” he says. “As we were saying—”

“Shouldn’t the girl lead the meeting now?” Aunt Lorraine asks, peering at her brother through slitted eyelids. “Or would you really wait until her formal ascension to release responsibility?”

As she turns her eagle-eyed gaze on me, I can’t help but shiver. Aunt Lorraine is dressed impeccably in a leopard-print dress beneath a dark brown shawl. Her shoulder-length gray hair is pressed and laid, not a single strand out of place. Each ring on her fingers glints in the fluorescent light.

Despite the fact that I’m her great-niece and one of Malik’s best friends, she’s never shown any love toward me.

“She’s still learning,” Gramps says gruffly. “Now, don’t interrupt me again.”

“Don’t forget your place, Ezekiel,” Aunt Lorraine snaps. “I’m still your older sister.” She points a ruby-adorned finger in my direction and proclaims, “We all know this girl isn’t fit to serve. This coven has gone too long without true leadership. It’s time to look beyond the Cormier line.”

Aunt Roberta curses under her breath and slams her palm on the table. I’ve never seen her so openly furious. “Shut your mouth, Lorraine! Where is your loyalty? After all Adelaide did for you and for her people, you ought to be ashamed.”

“It’s the truth,” Aunt Lorraine says. “A man is dead because Adelaide Broussard failed to stomp out those wretched white witches when she had the chance.”

Confusion and shock electrify my tongue. “What are youeven talking about?” I snarl. Aunt Lorraine and Gran never saw eye to eye, but I didn’t expect her to speak so savagely against her. “What do you have against Gran?”

“Quiet!All of you.” Gramps clambers to his feet. “This isn’t the time nor the place for these petty squabbles. Like you said, a man is dead.”

“And you know why,” Aunt Lorraine spits. “Only the Hightowers could be responsible for such callous evil.”

The Hightowers. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time and only in whispered conversations, never so out in the open. Among the other witches in this city, the Hightowers are the only coven with numbers as large as ours.

They were cast out from Salem during the time of the witch trials and moved from place to place until finally settling in New Orleans around the time that Gran’s mother was queen.

I’ve never set eyes on a Hightower witch, and that’s because they went into hiding years before I was born. In Gran’s and Gramps’s eyes, their name is synonymous with evil. I could never suss out why. Gran would never answer my questions about them, so I stopped asking.

“We can’t immediately assume they’re to blame,” Levi croaks for the first time, leaning forward and placing his grizzled hands on the table. “There needs to be a full investigation.”

“Agreed,” Miss Connie says. She peers at Gramps through thick lenses. “All the witnesses need to be questioned. Including you and Mikaela.”

“I’ve held nothing back,” he says.

“Except you waited until there was a death to inform us of the first incident,” Aunt Lorraine says. “You cost that man his life.”

“She has a point,” Terrence, the representative for the new families, says. “Why didn’t you call on us after the LeBlanc girl?”

Gramps casts his eyes downward. To the others, he appears intimidated, but I can read him well enough to see that he’s keeping them from sensing the true reason he withheld the information: to protect me.

“I hoped it would be a one-off occurrence. I never thought…”

Aunt Lorraine narrows her eyes. “Tell me, what is the difference between Theresa’s daughter and James Peterson? Why did one survive while the other died?”

Gramps steeples his fingers on his temple. “Mikaela and I worked as a team while James’s daughter was alone when she attempted to heal him.”

Aunt Lorraine waves him away. “We all know the girl is inexperienced.” She traps me in her gaze. “You would have essentially done all the work yourself, Zeke.”

I can’t help the groan that escapes my lips. Not this again.

“Look,” I begin, “I know I’m not the best healer—I’ll admit that any day of the week—but I worked just as hard as Gramps.”

Adrenaline floods my veins as Aunt Lorraine and I stare each other down. The truth is I’m not sure whether I helped Marian much at all, but I’m tired of hearing her insult me. I refuse to back down this time.

She glances away first.

“That could be the case,” Aunt Roberta chimes in. “This illness, whatever it is, may require multiple witches.”